"There may be some fighting, but nothing serious. The Boers who came through the town in their retreat were perfectly disheartened; they abused their commanders, declared that they had been grossly deceived, and that it was of no use trying to stop the Rooineks, for that they would not attack them in the positions they had fortified, but went round at the sides, and they were obliged to retreat at once to save their guns and waggons." By this time they arrived at the house. "That is not the horse you rode when you were here," Mr. Chambers remarked as they alighted. "No, sir; Mr. von Rensburg, when I started for Kimberley on my way to Mafeking, insisted on lending me this horse, as both of my own were worn out by the work they had had. It is a splendid animal, and has carried me nobly, as you may imagine when I tell you that, after a very rapid march from Kimberley to Mafeking, I started early the next morning and rode down to Boshof and then up to Kroonstad, a distance of over four hundred miles, in less than nine days. He said that I was to ask you to take care of it until there was an opportunity of sending it down to Bloemfontein, or until he came up here, which he was going to do as soon as the roads were open." "That I will do willingly. I dare say I shall hear from him now that the line is open again, and it will be possible to send letters." They now sat down to lunch, and after the meal Yorke gave the details of his journey down, and of the struggle in the yard of the inn at Colesberg. "That was a fortunate escape indeed," Mr. Chambers said, "and wonderfully well managed." "I can't think how you do such things," Mrs. Chambers remarked. "You do not look more than eighteen, and yet you seem to be as cool and as quick in deciding what is best to be done as if you had been employed in dangerous work for many years." "I don't think age makes much difference, Mrs. Chambers," Yorke laughed. "The games that one plays at school make one quick. A fellow sends down a ball at your wicket, and while it is on its way, which is not much above a second, you have to decide what to do with it, whether you will block it, or drive it, or cut it to leg. It is the same with football, and at boxing or single-stick you have to guard a blow and return it before, as one would imagine, you had time to think. In fact, you don't know yourself that you think. I should say that a fellow is quicker and cooler when he leaves school or college than he can be years afterwards, when he has altogether got out of the way of using his wits in a hurry." After talking for an hour Yorke walked up with Mr. Chambers to the engine-houses. "I hope we shall be getting to work soon," the latter said.